The Ratio of Political Goodness and Negative Freedom in Berlin's Political Thought (With Emphasis on Russian Communism)

Abstract

The present article aims to examine Isaiah Berlin's views and ideas, and gives answers to the questions of how political goodness is linked to the concept of negative liberty in Berlin's thought, and how his view of political goodness has formed his critique looking toward the political system of the Soviet Union. Political goodness in Berlin's thought seems to be multiplied, and from the pluralist perspective links to the notion of negative freedom, which means the choice among values by the humans. Berlin believes that political goodness belongs to certain cultural and social contexts and criticize it for the fact that the Russian Communism has a monistic view of political truths in society. In other words (Namely), it can be said that negative liberty as a restriction of decision-making and human selection, is the most important and central element of the political goodness, and without it, other goodness cannot be raised considerably. According to Isaiah Berlin's pluralistic view, we find that the ruling party in the Soviet political system, based on Marxist ideology, is a monotonous and monistic party that did not allow growth and presence of other political ideas.